Older Mom? You May Live Longer

There may be a benefit to being an older mom — it may be a sign that a woman will live longer, too. A study of exceptionally long-lived families found that women who had their last child without fertility assistance after age 33 were twice as likely to live to 95 or older compared with women who had all their children in their 20s.

“The natural ability to have a child at an older age likely indicates that a woman's reproductive system is aging slowly, and therefore so is the rest of her body,” said Dr. Thomas Perls of Boston University School of Medicine.

Perls and colleagues used data from 551 families, including many who have lived to exceptionally old ages. The study has also found that women who had a child after 40 were four times more likely to live to 100 than women who finished their families earlier.